The Republicans just can’t help themselves. They can’t control their most base instincts. It’s instinctive: Must throw every every nasty and racist (sometimes subtle, sometimes not) attack at Sotomayor without regard to the political consequences. This really is who they are. Via Greg Sargent:
Sonia Sotomayor was nominated only 24 hours ago, but a familiar pattern is already visible: The overheated conservative reaction to the pick is likely to further complicate the GOP’s efforts to shake off its image as intolerant, backward-looking, harshly obstructionist, and captive to extreme elements.
The reaction from the right is already playing into the hands of Dems, whose strategy is to make any and all GOP objections to Sotomayor about the current state of the Republican Party.
Evidence of this isn’t hard to find. In a CNN radio interview, RNC chair Michael Steele all but begged fellow Republicans to temper their rhetoric on Sotomayor. Steele said, wishfully, that the GOP “right now will avoid partisan knee-jerk judgments.”
Conservative Republicans, however, didn’t get that memo, denouncing her in harsh, sometimes racially loaded terms.
Rush Limbaugh attacked her as a “hack” and a “reverse racist.” Pat Buchanan declared her an “Affirmative Action pick.” And Senator Jim Inhofe worried that Sotomayor won’t apply the law “without undue influence” from her “race” and “gender.” There is much more like this.
There’s so much more like this. The Republicans are captive to the extremist elements because it’s all they’ve got left in their party.
Over at Firedoglake, Christy Hardin Smith identified the key right wing line of attack via the buffoonery of Tom Fitton from Judicial Watch:
Here we have the very essence, the core if you will, of right wing objections to Judge Sotomayor’s nomination. I give you the intellectual stylings and logical superiority of Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton:
David Shuster: “What evidence do you have that she would put her feelings and politics above the rule of law?”
Tom Fitton: “Because President Obama chose her.”
She was nominated by a Democratic President. Ergo, she must be unacceptable without any factual foundation as to why.
Taaaa daaaaaaaaaah.
Yes, there you have it in a nutshell — or a nut’s rant. And, it’s only going to get worse.
